Silent Spring Institute to Conduct 5-year Study

Silent Spring Institute was awarded a $2.6 million federal grant recently to investigate highly fluorinated chemicals called PFASs and their impacts on children’s health.

Officials with the Institute were in Hyannis Wednesday discussing how the grant will be used. The Institute’s water quality expert is Dr. Laurel Schaider who says the 5-year study should get underway in the spring of 2019:

"One component of our study will be an evaluation of children's health effects. We'll be recruiting 60 in Hyannis and 60 children at the Pease Tradeport in Portsmouth, New Hampshire," said Schaider. "We'll be measuring children's blood for the levels of PFAS that they've been exposed to as well as markers to their immune system."

Dr. Schaider says this spring they will be looking to enroll children ages 4-through-6 for the 5-year study. Children will be tested about a month after they receive their diphtheria, tetanus, and Pertussis vaccination and looking at whether children with higher PFAS [PEE-fas] levels have less of a boost following those immunizations.